Esar comments on By Which It May Be Judged - LessWrong

35 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 December 2012 04:26AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 10 December 2012 03:28:06PM *  1 point [-]

I'm not at all convinced that all LWers have been persuaded that they don't have qualia.

Well, it's probably important to distinguish between to uses to which the theory of qualia is put: first as the foundation of foundationalist empiricism, and second as the basis for the 'hard problem of consciousness'. Foundationalist theories of empiricism are largely dead, as is the idea that qualia are a source of immediate, non-conceptual knowledge. That's the work that Sellars (a strident reductivist and naturalist) did.

Now that I read it again, I think my original post was a bit misleading because I implied that the theory of qualia as establishing the 'hard problem' is also a dead theory. This is not the case, and important philosophers still defend the hard problem on these grounds. Mea Culpa.

The only enthusiast for Sellars I know finds it necessary to adopt Direct Realism, which is a horribly flawed theory. In fact most of the problems with it consist of reconciling it with a naturalistic world view.

Once direct realism as an epistemic theory is properly distinguished from a psychological theory of perception, I think it becomes an extremely plausible view. I think I'd probably call myself a direct realist.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 12 December 2012 04:00:09AM 1 point [-]

Foundationalist theories of empiricism are largely dead, as is the idea that qualia are a source of immediate, non-conceptual knowledge.

I'd have said that qualia are not a source of unprocessed knowledge, but the processing isn't conceptual.

I take 'conceptual' to mean thought which is at least somewhat conscious and which probably can be represented verbally. What do you mean by the word?

Comment author: [deleted] 12 December 2012 04:45:23AM 0 points [-]

I take 'conceptual' to mean thought which is at least somewhat conscious and which probably can be represented verbally. What do you mean by the word?

I mean 'of such a kind as to be a premise or conclusion in an inference'. I'm not sure whether I agree with your assessment or not: if by 'non-conceptual processing' you mean to refer to something like a physiological or neurological process, then I think I disagree (simply because physiological processes can't be any part of an inference, even granting that often times things that are part of an inference are in some way identical to a neurological process).

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 13 December 2012 05:45:03AM 0 points [-]

I think we're looking at qualia from different angles. I agree that the process which leads to qualia might well be understood conceptually from the outside (I think that's what you meant). However, I don't think there's an accessible conceptual process by which the creation of qualia can be felt by the person having the qualia.